i got a question which might sound a little stupid, but because so many people i met had different opinions, i'm still interested in this thing. The question is whether sorting the material and lines inside the canopy during packing has a great influence on the opening? During my whole student period, i wasn't even told the option to sort the material. I just got to know it later because other skydivers told me about it. So what is your experience? Does it matter? More on-heading openings? Less malfunctions (lineover)? Softer openings? Personally i currently jump a 150 and normally don't sort the material inside, got wonderful openings without doing it. I really don't think you will have worse openings, just so that nobody complains that you don't have all the options ;-)

If I understand your post, you are talking about "flaking" the canopy.

My opinion is that flaking does more to reduce wear and tear on the canopy than it does to affect the openings, but having the lines to the inside and fabric to the outside will help prevent a line over.

Walking up the lines is a good preventative step to prevent tension knots and step-through malfunctions.

I always flake my canopy as the time it adds to the pack-job is negligible to me.

Right, flaking was the word i was looking for. Thank you very much. If it reduces the wear i will take the extra seconds in the future to keep the gear i hire or soon hopefully my own gear in a better condition. So far i was only aware of the fact that it might prevent some lineover malfunctions.

I do it quick with the slider on my shoulder and then get hands between AB and toss B out and push fabric to the sides then again with BC tossing C out... what i mean by toss is that i push the lines forward in a group and then quickly push fabric to the sides. I also make sure that the line ground all run together and as vertical as possible... takes less then 30 sec of my time and assures things are in their right places.

I was taught to flake, Nick Grillet mentions that this is not the most important phase, but I still do this. I also noticed that our main packer does this more carefully on student canopies (he pushes each section to the side separately instead of one push between the line rows). I also noticed some packer skip this completely on some small canopies (this guy has like 50 000 pack jobs, so I believe he didn't get major complaints on his packing, regarding openings anyway).

The question is whether sorting the material and lines inside the canopy during packing has a great influence on the opening?

The answer is no! When I developed “Trash Packing” (later named “PRO” packing by Mike Fury)(PRO= Proper Ram air Orientation) back in the late 70’s. I analogized it to packing a round. If you could hold the skirt of a round high enough off the ground to let the apex dangle it would be a simple mater to “Flake” it. A square is short enough to do this. I never drape it on my shoulder. I hold the line groups out in one hand while I flake it on one side then swap hands and repeat for the other side. Pick up the tail and hold it under my thumb and lay it nose down on the floor. Time spent clearing or arranging the inside is wasted and unnecessary. All that is necessary is to follow the perimeter of the canopy completely around the canopy to assure no part of the outside edge of the canopy is tucked in or wrapped in a line. Additionally this assures proper line alignment to the outside of the canopy. If this is done it doesn’t matter what the inside looks like it will be OK.

When I learned to pack, one of the guys who was our local rigger made 100 jumps where he set the brakes, walked the lines up, shook the canopy, pushed the slider up to the stops and wrapped the tail. No flaking or origami with the nose or other fabric of the canopy before putting it in the bag. The videos showed his openings (on stilettos) being just as good/soft/etc as you would expect them to be, and he had no malfunctions.

The way I remember his argument was- most of what you do when packing a parachute is to make it last longer, not to make it open. Flaking reduced the possibility of line burns on fabric, but didn't make the canopy open softer/better.

This would explain why manufactures etc. would recommended it for the sake of extending the life of the canopy and reducing the risk of damage.

This was a long time ago...so who knows, but seems to make sense. I flake on every pack job (well...most... :) ). I know I have had some true trash pack jobs this season where I cringed as I tossed my pilot chute, only to have the best openings of the weekend.

I don't want to speak for Mr. Sherman, but I don't think that's what he said. He's just saying that if you pull all the panels to the outside while containing the lines in the center, then there's no need to spend time "cleaning up" the inside, because there won't be anything to clean up, It's already been done with the previous outside flaking technique.

Thanks for all your answers. So from what i read here, flaking doesn't affect the openings, but that way you can extend the life period of a canopy. And that is worth the little extra effort. Now i will flake my canopy everytime :-)

In my opinion, flaking yer main canopy does have an effect upon opening characteristics. Especially if you're jumping a cross-braced at 3.0, in which case everything affects openings...packing method, line trim, body position, harness adjustment, thinking bad thoughts, a duck's fart, the alignment of the planets, etc.

The effect of flaking yer canopy might be negligible, but it is there.

I jump a crossbraced canopy at 2.75lbs/sg ft and never flake it, i just count the nose, give it a shake, set the slider clear the brakes and stabilisers then wrap the tail, this gives me much nicer openings than when flaking.

Thanks for all your answers. So from what i read here, flaking doesn't affect the openings, but that way you can extend the life period of a canopy. And that is worth the little extra effort. Now i will flake my canopy everytime :-)

The folks who assert that flaking can extend the life of the canopy don't explain why this is so. When they pack, they push the left side of the center cell fabric in between all the left line groups. When the canopy opens, all that fabric rushes back between the line groups. The same thing happens on the right side. Why is this good?

The folks who assert that flaking can extend the life of the canopy don't explain why this is so.

I won't claim to have the answer but I'm guessing there may be a small effect from the folding, that much of the fabric is folded flat in the flakes and not all crumpled up randomly every time.

Like on a reserve: The center cell's front gets massively wrinkled from scrunching it down 'to nothing' in molaring the canopy, while the outer cells get clean neat fold lines in them. I'll bet the former quickly gets a higher porosity than the latter. Yes there is a difference in fabrics, and that reserve wear is more from pack jobs while the mains get the stress of jumps all the time, no matter what the pack job -- that may overwhelm any packing effect. Will there be a difference, 1000 jumps folded neatly vs. 1000 jumps crumpled up?

For the thread in general, I dunno, but flaking probably has some effect, even if not huge in typical cases, when one is talking about perfectly flaked vs. just shaken.

I know 'shake it out and wrap it' is sometimes used on really small canopies, but does anyone ever use it much on a 135 to a 210??

Lines all to the outside and fabric inside probably wouldn't help the opening reliability in the long run? That would encourage fabric to 'blow through' between the wrong lines, particularly for the brakes, even if the brake lines were placed along the centerline.

'Lines to the outside' is the extreme version the alternative to 'flaked', while 'shaking out' is a less extreme comparison to make. So we have to be careful about what we are talking about as the alternative to neat flaking.

As a small benefit, flaking (vs. shaking out) at least to some degree should help in getting the canopy smaller and more controllable during the packing process, improving how symmetrical the pack job is for some people.

A test of all this would be to flake one side of the canopy neatly and just shake out the other side and jump the canopy a bunch of times that way. Even if both ways 'work', this would help show whether there is any difference in openings. Any takers?

A test of all this would be to flake one side of the canopy neatly and just shake out the other side and jump the canopy a bunch of times that way. Even if both ways 'work', this would help show whether there is any difference in openings. Any takers?

Or you could take one side of the canopy and flake it exactly right, and take the other side of the canopy and flake it exactly wrong. An over-the-shoulder side pack.

As Mark says, "To reduce the bulk". Wrinkled up fabric while OK for functional purposes, it is bulkier than neatly folded fabric.

In my years in this sport I have never seen a line burn on a Ram-Air canopy from pacling. No mater how it was packed.

As Elec Puskus of Para-Flite once said all you need to do is make sure the lines are straight and the slider is up and you are good to go. I would add that you should assure that you havent wrapped a steering line around the stablizers which would fall into the category of un-straight lines.

The French government did studies many years ago and found exactly what we have told you.

The OP's original question:

Quote:

The question is whether sorting the material and lines inside the canopy during packing has a great influence on the opening?

He didn't use the word "Flake". I would use it to refer to the outside edge (perimeters) of the canopy only, not for the unneeded process of clearing the inside material and lines. The folks out ther who are doing it are just wasting time and being anal.

John, I hate to disappoint you but line burn occurs frequently on ram air canopies. I patch numerous canopies every year;probably install about 100-150 patches if not more. Most of these are line burn induced.

The following just happens to be a picture that I have on my "traveling' laptop.

I hate to disappoint you but line burn occurs frequently on ram air canopies. I patch numerous canopies every year;probably install about 100-150 patches if not more. Most of these are line burn induced.

I didn't say you couldn't get line burns on canopies. I said you don't get them as a result of not clearing the area inside of the permiter. From your photo it is difficult to understand what part of the canopy is shown. Maybe a stablizer, if so, it was from not clearing the permiter. Show me a line burn from a "B", "C", or "D" line resulting from not clearing the inside on a "PRO" pack and I will modify my thinking.